Stand Alone
by gravybowl
Summary: One shot, FMP - What if Seina had never met Sousuke? My version on Seina's psychological thoughts. Dashes indicate italics - mostly thoughts, and in one case, a flashback.


Breathing heavily, Seina rounded the dusty corner. The roaring of flames reached her ears. Her bloody mouth formed a heavy grimace, and she bared her teeth. The police were dangerous. She had been shot at multiple times, and some of the shots hadn't failed the shooters.  
  
-What do you want?-  
  
"Hello? It's Cruz Seven here. Headquarters?" Looking cautiously around the corner, Seina saw an uniformed man on the platform fiddling with a portable walkie-talkie. Quietly, she reached behind her, and grasped the butt of the gun.  
  
"Headquarters here. Cruz Seven, please report your situation," the walkie- talkie spat out.  
  
"I am at Tokugu Island. The target is dead," the man said into the machine, "but a masked terrorist is on the loose. Request reinforcements." Seina slowly aimed for the back of the man's neck. He was Tomoku's killer. Tomoku had taught Seina everything she knew. Now...she was dead. She would not forgive the police. A quick blow – perhaps it could be painless and quick for her fellow enemy.  
  
"Request denied. Cruz Seven; forget the terrorist. Just board your VH-60 and get the hell out of there." The walkie-talkie fizzed; static was a dangerous enemy. It could decide your life at a crucial point. Perhaps, if you needed help or back up, like she had once needed, and static took over your talking device, who would hear your cries?  
  
"You don't understand, General! This terrorist shouldn't be taken lightly; she alone has taken out twenty M1s!"  
  
"She? Hmm..."the man on the other end of the machine snickered, "a woman? How dangerous can she be? As I said before, Cruz Seven, get on your VH-60, and get back to base!" Seina's grip on the gun tightened. She hated those types of people. They were always thinking that women were incapable of things; incapable of great things... A bead of sweat ran down her cheek, and she checked herself. It would only take two seconds for the bullet to reach the base of the man's neck, snap his spinal cord, and kill the man. It would be almost painless; the man would only hear the squelching noise of the metal piercing his flesh, and feel the burning of the speeding bullet crack his bones. Then his precious general could talk all he wanted to his subordinate; the latter would not hear.  
  
"General! Request –"  
  
-What do you want?-  
  
Seina pulled the trigger.  
  
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Seina sat on the former Cruz Seven's VH-60. Her hand slid on the smooth surface. Did they remember her over there? It had been three years already. Did they just burn her record and pretend she never existed? No one would question; no one would care. Help me, Tomoku. Help me decide. Did they care now? Three years ago, they didn't care.  
  
No one came to rescue her when she was trapped under her M1. Maybe she wouldn't have even made it, if it were not for Tomoku. She had saved her from the burning wreck, and Seina had joined her band of guerrillas for repayment. Would the police force have done the same for her? Apparently not, they now took her as dead. A corner of Seina's mouth went up in a bitter smirk; her "colleagues" hadn't even bothered to retrieve her body from the M1. A tear traced a clean path through her dusty face. No, not even Rhyumi had even come to search for her. Seina supposed that they had been much surprised when the next time that particular police force was told to search for her, they were to search for a highly skilled criminal.  
  
But, why trouble her mind over these things? Now was the time to take care of the present. The infuriating police killed her band of guerrillas. She would have to avenge her dead friends; it was only tradition. The police would be consumed in the devastating mess here. They would try to find the bodies of the dead. The corpses were buried under the rubble, like her past. It would take them days to find the remains, during which would be more than enough for her to cause a crisis somewhere else.  
  
Fire, grenades, death; this was her life. She had given up the police life a long time ago. It seemed ages when her skills were disgusting; when she had let so many chances slip under her unprofessional hand. Perhaps that was why the police force let her go; didn't save her when she was wobbling on the line of life and death.  
  
Seina boarded the VH-60, and turned the key in the ignition. The aircraft rose, and she turned the wheel so it faced west, towards the city.  
  
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"Headquarters! Come in! Come in!" A woman's voice frantically rose, as she tried to drive her vehicle and keep an eye on the van in front of her.  
  
"Headquarters here," a vaguely familiar voice said. "State your request."  
  
"Request back up. I am chasing a van that avoided roadcheck, one of our maintenance vehicles. This may link to the accident a week ago at the island." There was silence on the other end of the radio. "Headquarters!"  
  
"Is that you, Rhyumi?" the voice on the other end said quietly. Rhyumi stared at the radio for a few seconds.  
  
"Please! Request –"Rhyumi paused, and listened for a response. There was only static. The car slowly cruised to a stop. The van sped away, and Rhyumi could vaguely make out a vulgar hand signal from the getaway car. Who was on the other radio? Seina had been gone for at least three years. Besides, Seina had been on the Wanted list for a very long time; if she showed up at Headquarters, even her very much improved skill could not save her against all the soldiers at the base. Could it be?  
  
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Seina reclined in the easy chair where the former general had once sat, watching the handcuffed control people. -That sexist bastard-, thought Seina. The former general now lay in a pool of his blood, and some of it was Seina's. -He was a good fighter; too bad I was better-, Seina thought with a smirk that would have put some excellent criminals to shame. Her left side was still leaking blood, but she had other things to worry about at the moment. That woman on the radio; that was Rhyumi. -Why didn't you come to save me? Weren't we partners?- Seina's hands twitched.  
  
"Ma'am..." a shaking man stood on the left side of Seina. Without looking at him, she threw the towel with which she had been stanching her blood flow with at him. He caught it, whimpering as blood dripped from where he was slightly squeezing the towel.  
  
"Get me another towel, and send four M1s and six VH-60s to the Fujikura Plaza." Seina quietly cocked her pistol. Maybe she would have need for it...  
  
"But..." the man's eyes widened as Seina pointed the pistol at him. "Don't shoot, please! I have a family I have to..."  
  
"Do you think I give a shit about your family? " Seina shouted, and winced. Blood flowed over her fingers, staining the chair. "Goddamnit - get me a towel, you incompetent piece of shit!"  
  
"Right away, Ma'am!" The man stumbled out of the room, and stopped, panting heavily. Seina's gun hand wavered, but her aim was still deadly accurate. Her finger tightened on the trigger and –  
  
"Ryousuke!" someone shouted. Seina lost her concentration, and the bullet embedded itself in the frame. Smoke issued from the steel, and the man ran for his life, removing a breather from his pocket.  
  
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A little boy, holding a red balloon and his mother's sleeve in his hands, looked up in the sky. Several aircraft hovered over the crowd, whipping the boy's hair up.  
  
-"Tell them to fire at the crowd when they get there." Seina calmly said.  
  
"But..." a handcuffed woman at the controls cried, "they are innocent people –"  
  
"I said, tell them to fire." Seina repeated.-  
  
Bullets sprayed everywhere from the helicopters. The little boy's lifeless body fell on the pavement, and a solitary red balloon rose in the air.  
  
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Seina rose from her chair. Blood pooled on the floor; this time, not her own. All the control people slumped over their keyboards and machinery. Seina couldn't possibly let them identify her after she left this base. She had to live on, and fulfil her dream. The previous man – Ryousuke – rushed into the room, and stumbled into a messy salute.  
  
"Ma'am, mission completed. The plaza is destroyed – what happened here?" The man stared around the room in horror, and froze in shock as his eye lined up with the barrel of a slightly shaking gun. Seina gave him a few seconds before she fired.  
  
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Rhyumi stumbled over the threshold. -Hurry! You might be too late...- she furiously thought. A shot ran out – the control room! – and Rhyumi rammed the room unsuccessfully with her shoulder and rattled the doorknob. -Locked, but that won't hold me back, Seina!- Rhyumi drew out her gun and shot at the door hinge. Five empty cartridges landed with a gentle clink on the floor. The door noisily fell down, and from the bottom of cloud of dust, Rhyumi saw a pair of shiny black boots and a disgusting squelching noise as they stepped in and out of a lake of blood.  
  
Rhyumi looked up – a gun was locked onto her – and she saw Seina's bloody face behind the pistol. Without a word, Seina fired once – twice – and she watched as Rhyumi's body gracefully arced in the air. Seina calmly walked over to Rhyumi. Her gaze locked onto her former partner – a trickle of blood made its path down the side of Rhyumi's mouth – and she squatted down onto her heels. Seina gently took the sleeve of her already bloodstained jacket, and wiped the rebelling stream of blood up. Her eyes travelled slowly up the corpse's face – there was the nose that was slightly bent from the time the drug dealer had punched Rhyumi in the nose before Seina had managed to cuff his hands – and those deep hazel eyes she had always been jealous of. Those eyes, which had once looked upon her with compassion and friendliness, were now frozen in the horrific look of confusion and betrayal. Seina abruptly stood up. -But hadn't you betrayed me too? You never came for me.- The pistol in her hand automatically pointed at the dead body, and Seina fired out uncountable times at what was left of Rhyumi, her mouth set in a grim line.  
  
Seina's trigger finger kept on pressing the trigger, but all her bullets were imbedded in Rhyumi's eyes. However, another shot rang out, and Seina's vision clouded with red haze and her focus immediately became fuzzy. She had lost too much blood from the already bleeding wound, and now someone had shot her there again? How murderous. But what should she expect? It was a man-eat-man; in her case, woman-eat-woman, world. Seina had often wondered about death. Would it hurt? Was it like floating? Was this what dying is like? She stumbled – held onto her gun tightly – and clutched her left side. Someone appeared, holding a smoking gun...Seina tried to focus...  
  
-Tomoku, is that you?- Seina dizzily wondered. No, this woman had the spirit of a guerilla, but she was in a uniform. Death was like floating; she suddenly felt weightless. It was not Tomoku, Seina knew that her savior would not have fired at her – the woman's mouth moved – forming words, but Seina did not hear. It was Tomoku; however, who spoke the fading words in her mind.  
  
-What do you want?  
  
I want to destroy, to see the world go up in flames of fear, and to take advantage of crisis.  
  
Is that true, Seina?  
  
Yes.- 


End file.
